"Paul" wrote in message
ups.com...
Bryan-- I live in the SF North Bay area. My family just did a week at
Oroville camping at Loafer Creek park. If you're tent camping, this is
a great place to stay. Clean, well maintained and almost empty except
on weekends. There is a great swimming area with a grassy picnic area.
My only complaint was that the camp got a little rowdy over the weekend
(college kids, underage drinking but the rangers took care of it). I
usually avoid weekends.

Out on the water things were quiet and not crowded at all. If you stay
at Loafer creek theres a medium sized grocery store and gas station
only 10 minutes from the park entrance-- this is a good deal if you're
camping with little kids (trust me). There are no facilities here to
leave your boat in the water overnight and the campsites are about a
half mile from the ramp but it's a very easy tow and the campsites have
sufficient parking to keep your boat and tow vehicle without
difficulty. This was our third summer camping at Oroville and the water
levels and boating conditions were perfect when we were there.

I'd toss out another name for you that's not too far from Santa Rosa,
Lake Don Pedro just east of Modesto. We went there for the first time a
week ago and really enjoyed it. I didn't find much to do on shore but
there are many campsites right on the shoreline with good shallow water
swimming right at your camp. Many of us anchored our boats for the week
right at our campsites. There's a nice marina right at the campground.
The skiing and wakeboarding are great because the lake has tons of
large coves that you can have almost to yourself (at least during the
week.) The coves are protected so that even on windy days you have
nearly flat water. The other thing that was different from Oroville was
that the lake topography was much better suited for anchoring. Oroville
is surrounded by high cliffs and steeply banked shorelines while at Don
Pedro, the bottom slopes up gradually and we could easily anchor in 20
or 30 feet of water and swim to our hearts content. Just food for
thought.

Enjoy your summer,


Great information, Paul!

I know what you mean about the anchoring difference.
It's one of the first wake up calls when I got the boat. I'm used to
sailing and reading charts and finding good anchoring. I'm not used to
powerboating on lakes! I found a nice cove at Lake Sonoma and got close to
shore and tossed the anchor over. It sure took a long time to hit bottom!
And even with all that rode out we still dragged anchor. A bit perplexing,
then I realized Lake Sonoma is a canyon filled with water; steep and deep to
the edge.

Thank you,
Bryan